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j.hillard's Afan Lido

Hi all,

I haven't posted much on the forums as I've been playing FM 2007 the past 4 years (I got to 2084 and Lancaster City were the biggest club in the world!) and so haven't really been in the loop enough to post about the new games. Anyway I've bought FM2011 and i've been playing as Afan Lido in Wales (yes another Lido manager!). I'm a few seasons down the line and as it seems like i'll be committed to this save I thought i'd better start posting my progress. So here it goes:

League (League Table)
Nothing spectacular here. Was pretty clear early on that we weren't going to go down and that we weren't going to pull up any trees.

Domestic Cups
We went out at the first attempt of both cups.

Transfers
I had no transfer money so I signed a bunch of nobodys who had been been released from other welsh clubs at the end of the previous season. The most notable was former Swansea City and Wycombe Wanderers midfielder Stuart Roberts.

Transfers: We only signed a right wing from Wrexham on a free; the rest were all the same.

- In a year where we had to balance four competitions, we were sitting 6th and 12 points away from 1st place with 12 games left. We managed to get a great run, and TNS managed to just keep us off the lead by three points. We did not win the league for the first time in five years, yex; but to have finished second place when the season went like this, plus having been in the Euro cup group stages...I'll definitely take it.

Loosemores Cup
- We beat up to five teams to get to the final, all Premier teams, and won the Cup for the third year in a row, trashing TNS 4-1, returning the favor of themhaving won the league only days before. We are now the team with more Loosemores Cups, with 6.

Welsh Cup
- We definitely suffered keeping a decent form for the main Cup with everything else that was happening this year, but managed to make it to the semifinals, were we lost to Haverfordwest only on PK (4-3) after a 0-0 game. The lads could barely walk at the end of ther 120 minutes.

Champions League

- Our best run yet. We crashed Kazajstan's Toboi 7-2 on aggregate, and then pulled a 6-4 agg result against Litex, who had beaten Legia 8-3 themselves. FC Copenhague killed us 7-1 overall...one single round away from the group stages, Still, happy as ever.

Euro Cup

- We qualified in the group stages after the CL loss, and were paired with Villarreal, Olympiakos, and Vitesse. We started with a win against the Dutch home 3-2, to then lose 7-0 at Vila-real,a game where we just could not help but watch amazing football.

- The third game was a 4-3 loss at Olympiakos, in a game where the 4-3 winning goal for the home side would arrive in the 88th minute, against a nine-men Afan Lido side due to convinient injuries after all subs were made. If we had tied that game, we would have gone onto the next stage.

- After a 3-3 game vs Olympiakos at Port (home), we managed to amazing wins, away to Vitesse 1-2, and at home against mighty Villarreal, 2-0. My favorite result so far in these eleven years. However, due to the direct results with Olympiakos, we were eliminated. That 4-3 reuslt killed us in the end. Villarreal and Olympiakos went on to play against each other in the round of 16, and Villarreal was out in the next round.

- The midfield was superb this season. Jones and Kerr went on to get double digits both on goals and assists, and Niang gave 15 passes of goal in all competitions. Christos Angeli was just something else. He tapped 30 goals this year, five of them in Europe. He ended player of the year, and top scorer of the league.

- Andy Legg ended up winning the Welsh Cup...so now he is 8 points away from me, since I did not get any for winning the Losemoores. Great. Now I have to win everything to beat him...it's on, little fcuker!

- Also, the club will be spending around £3m to improve the youth facilities, finally....except that 3m is around 65% of our total money. Oh well. We did make £2m this year in European competition money.

- Season passes - 34, one more than last year.
- Attendance - 182 in average, 25 more than last year.
- Club's value - £3.7m - £1.7m more than last year!
- Sponsorship...still 50k pr year.
- Match/Season ticket - £9.30/£76 - Same as last year.
- The league is...36 up to 102nd; still at 1.5 stars but we're almost Top 100!!! 4 spots away from 2 stars, but I suspect that since TNS will probably do poorly at the CL, we'll go down next season.
- The club has gone up an amazing 102 spots, we are now 174th. Damn.

- Aims for next season:
1. To come back as winners of the league, and reclaim that CL spot!
2. To have a good Euro run; since there are going to be countless pre-group stage rounds, one never knows, but we'll give it a try.

I'm half way through the season and so far I've had two failed takeovers with the following transfer embargos. Both failed ones have been "Local Businessmen". Meanwhile, SV Mattersburg has had a Saudi Tycoon takeover and have upgraded both youth and training facilities, aswell as splashing out allmost £10M(!) so far this season. I, on the other hand, have £17k to use for transfers. Djeezes....

I thought i'd start my long overdue resume of Skjetten's progress with Marcus Evan Cook. After returning to a club he took to European glory in a previous version of this challenge, the progress had been steady.

After promotion as First Division Champions the aims were obvious, maintain Premiership status. This would be harder than anyone expected with many players opting not to remain at the club and sign new contracts. The media unsurprisedly expected us to to drop like a lead balloon and be back in the first division.
Yet again transfers were hard to come by and i had to boost the squad with free players. Sadly, none of these were real stars, however a number stood and were counted when the chips were down.

I'm half way through the season and so far I've had two failed takeovers with the following transfer embargos. Both failed ones have been "Local Businessmen". Meanwhile, SV Mattersburg has had a Saudi Tycoon takeover and have upgraded both youth and training facilities, aswell as splashing out allmost £10M(!) so far this season. I, on the other hand, have £17k to use for transfers. Djeezes....

And then I get my third transfer embargo this season. Another "Local Businessman" wants to take over. Why am I waiting for another failure...?

So after consolidating our position in the top flight the aim was to build upon this and push up the table. Things started quite well and we were able to hit mid season in the upper half of the league, well above our expected relegation place. This coincided with a much improved cup run and people started to take note.

So we'd exceeded my expectations and had made the final for the first ever time. This saw us face Sandejford, as you can imagine they were favourites and nobody expected us to do anything. Imagine everyone's surprise when...
Saliou Ciss our left back struck a sweet shot from the edge of the area and nestled in the back of the net. 1-0 and that's how it remained! Skjetten were crowned Norwegian Cup champions for the first time.

League Position - 2nd The cup form really helped us perform in the League and a second place finish saw us enter the Euro Cup, our first voyage into European Football.

After a truly memorable season winning the Norwegian Cup and European qualification people started to take Skjetten seriously and it allowed us to recruit a greater quality of player. Would these guys prove to be good enough to mount a serious title challenge?

First up was the Norwegian Super Cup, this saw us face the very strong Premiership Champions Rosenborg. Could we win, or are we going to face a hiding?

As you can see we were able to retain our crown as Champions of the Norwegian Cup.

The league was a really tight affair and saw ourselves and Rosenborg fight all the way down to the wire. It came down to the last match if we avoided defeat we would be crowned champions. Could we hold our nerve, or would be succumb to the pressure?

So we actually achieved the treble and were the toast of the Norwegian League and Cups.

Euro Cup

Our first voyage into the unknown saw us draw Vardar in the Third Qualifying Round. The away leg saw us take a 4-0 victory back home, and a 1-1 draw at home was enough to secure a place in the Fourth round.
This saw Skjetten draw the massive French club LOSC Lille Metropole. Somehow we scarped a 1-1 draw away, and a 2-1 home victory!
Into the Group Stage we went and this saw us draw the following in our Group:
Sampdoria, Zenit and Le Mans FC
This proved a tall order for us and we finished bottom of the group with a mere 4 points. Zenit no surprisingly topped the group!
Players:

A great season. Early on it were clear it was a two horse race between us and Matterburg. They got a Saudi tycoon takover who splashed out cash on anything resembling talent, not leaving much for us. Still we got some new players and managed to beat them in the end, much thanks to Parapatits and Chinchilla who had great seasons. We had a takeover aswell, but the only thing they have done so far is take up a £1.2M loan. At least we are in the top flight next season and should get some more cash flowing thanks to that. Most top flight teams are following our matches regulary and I get weekly reports of them watching my players, but so far no bids have come. Hopefully I can keep hold of them for next season.

Again we went out in the Austrian Cup in the second round to a lower division team, 'nuff said.

This seasons first 11:

GK: Yordan Gospodinov - Our bulgarian veteran goalkeeper has been stable all season and should hold another season hopefully.
DR: Patrick Farkas - Young and talented, regular for Austria U21
DL: Lukas Rath - Our other young fullback had a solid season.
DC: Pablo Chinchilla - Another great season for Pablo. 9 goals as centre back is just great. Hopefully he will retain his ability for next season.
DC: Ione - An ok season, but has some horrible matches every now and then. Looking to replace his as I need someone a bit quicker next to Chinchilla.
DM: Phillipp Netzer - Managed to keep hold of him despite heavy interest from top teams, althought he got a little drop in form around that point. Still a good player.
DM: Marvin Potzmann - Came in halfway trough the season and got some matches. Should be a regulat when he gets geled with the rest of the guys.
AMC: Alberto Quintero - A good season, although Alberto struggled quite a bit with injuries. Hopefully he can return stronger for next season.
AMR: Oliver Schöpf - Doesn't have the greatest stats, but scores and assists a plenty.
AML: Emin Sulimani - A great season for Emin. He was singled out before ever match at the one to watch out for.
SC: Joachim Parapatits - The real star this season with all his goals. Also became topscorer in the league. He is aging a bit, but still class.

Transfers: None, as we couldn't find anybody decent. We did bring up from the reserves the four players we had bought in May; 20 year old GK qwho had one start with Chelse at age 18 Charis Iliadis, from Cyprus; attacking mid Jack Hughes, ex-Tottenham, Bobby Parson, left mid from Chelsea also, and Kostas Nikolau, Brittish striker born in Cyprus who left Tottenham last summer. All the same type, the only type we can get; young, and a gamble.

- Euro Cup

We went past Croatian Cibalia (5-1 agg) and FBK Kaunas from Lithuania (5-2 agg), and went on to the last round before the Group Stages, against Scottish Motherwell. We lost both games against a better team, losing at home 1-3 and away 4-3. We put up a fight.

TNS went through one CL round, and fell on the next, to then also be eliminated in the Euro round we were in against Motherwell. At east they got some games going.

League

- Without the European games during the season, we were more into the league than last year, and the fight soon became a head to head between Lanelli and us. Legg's men were hoping to win the first league in 7 years, but it did not happen, as we clinched the title two games before the end of the regular season. It was really hard, but we did it, which shows the level of the league going up.

Loosemores Cup
- Out on quarterfinals. Broke the strike of three titles in a row...might as well give others the chance to win it. Neath Athletic got it.

Welsh Cup
- Beat a few lower sides, and went on to the quarterfinals, to beat TNS away 2-3 on overtime. Did the same thing on the semis vs Aberyswyth 0-1 away, and Lanelli waited in the final. After the 0-0 score in the 120th minute, we lost on penalties, 3-2. Hard to lose it that way, very hard. And even more to Lanelli.

- Same old. Ashley Jones and Kerr scoring from the midfield, and Angeli doing the same from up front. Honduran Jaime Vazquez has become the leader in the back, and the new signing Nikolaou definitely was the surprise.

- For some reason, even though we won the league and Legg only the cup, he is now 12 points away form me, with 7 league titles and 4 cups...They have won all four cups in the past 12 years, but Llanelli itself only has 4 titles in all of its history...and Legg started there as a manager, coming in 2009...which would mean he has 3 league titles, not seven. I don't get it, but I guess I just have to keep winning more than him year after year...

- Also, the board approved a second betterment of the youth facilities (as the last ones provided nothing), so there's that...as of today, we do not have a Welsh player on the team, but that is frankly due to not having decent youngsters. I'd be happy to get them in if they came with two feet instead of one, Jesus.

- Also kind of cool, Niang played with Senegal in the African Cup as a starter, and his country finished fourth. Also, Vazquez is in the US currently to play the Gold Cup.

- Season passes - 35, one more than last year. Man.
- Attendance - 216 in average, 40 more than last year! We are now on 3% of the stadium's capacity
- Club's value - £3.7m - £1.7m more than last year!
- Sponsorship...still 50k per year.
- Match/Season ticket - £10/£82 - £.5/£6 more than last year.
- The league is...I though we'd go down but we continue to go up! We are now 2 spots up to, officially, number 100. Awesome!
- The club has gone down 3 spots, we are now 179.

9th place isn’t a fair reflection on our season with us pushing for promotion right up until the last 5/6 weeks in which we lost nearly every game. If we kept our form going tight up until then we would have had a good chance of getting promoted but instead we have found ourselves in basically exactly the same position as the last two years.

Irish Cup – Another year where I wasn’t too interested in the cups, and I got knocked out in the 2nd round with a weakened side out

League Cup – What started as a competition which I didn’t care about quickly turned into one of the highlights of our season. We beat two division 1 sides, the first 4-1 with a half weakened side out, but our run came to an end in the semi’s against Cliftonville, who didn’t score until the 85th minute.

Intermediate Cup – The only tournament I actually tried in, and we get knocked out in the 1st round! Pretty disappointed due to it being the only one we had a realistic chance of winning but life moves on.

Transfers – Quite a few changes after last year’s disappointment, with 9 players coming in, as well as the 3 signed at the end of last season.

Squad – A lot better than last year, with 4 players breaking the 5 goal barrier! Need another striker or two which can score at least as much as Bloomer to get us up.

Key Players [/URL] – Barry Bloomer – First striker to score over 5 goals in a season, but most of them were at the start and couldn’t find the net when we needed it towards the end. Neil Harkin – By far our best player even though he didn’t have the best average rating, could create chances from nothing and if we had the right players, he would have got a lot more assists. Pete O’Shea – Our best defender by a mile, also chipped in with 6 goals.

Finances – Another massive lost, this year £46,000. There are rumours of a board takeover, and the chairman, James McMullan status has gone to will listen to offers.

Thanks, hopefully I can manage to stay up. The board has refused to increase the wage budget, and since pretty much everyone had a clause of 40% wage incease in case of promotion, I'm well over my budget.

So close to the CL group stage this time. We went through two rounds and in the last one before it, we played Omonoia Nicosia, the worst team that we could have drawn. They beat us 3-1 at their stadium, and then we were winning at home 2-0, and were onto the group stage...to allow a goal on the 90th minute. Gutted.

The good news is that we are now amongst the best coefficient teams when it comes to the first CL rounds, which helps to draw weaker teams. We just happened to draw the best out of the worst teams this year (and they are a lot better than us).

On the other hand, we'll be for the second time in our history in the Uefa Cup grup stages. Here is our amazing group:

Hannover 96, a decent German side. Them and us will fight not to finish last probably.

Celtic, our neighbors lost the CL playoff and now we will have the privilege to play in their stadium.

Deportivo de la Coruña, also lost the CL playoff and to top things last year, they lost only in the final of this competition to Porto.

So we get a powerful German side, and two CL teams, including the finalist from last year. This is going to be fun lol.

League (League Table)
A good improvement. Felt pretty close to challenging to top three all season and with the help of some late season signings we won the european places playoff to secure our first tast of european football.

Domestic Cups
Had a decent run to the quarter finals of the Welsh Cup and took my first silverware with a 3-1 victory over Neath in the Loosemoores League Cup.

Transfers (Transfers)
Made a few free transfers in the summer with the best being Ben Wood, a regen released by Everton who had 14 finishing. There were a few welsh players from the football league that I was after but they weren't interested. They were still free agents come april and suddenly Afan Lido appealed to them so I snapped up Arron Davies, Byron Anthony, Gareth Roberts and most impressively 7 times capped former Ipswich stopper Lewis Price!

The Numbers
Here are some numbers which should help keep track of the clubs/leagues progress:
Average Attendance - 113 {up 25}
Club Value - £250k
Sponsership - £6.56k
Club Coefficient - N/A

You too, enjoy European football! Don't get discouraged by the league rep, as you start doing well in Europe you'll go up. I remember going down like 150 places on the first seasons; now the league is at exactly number 100

Also the Welsh Cup's money is skyrocketing, we have gradually been getting more and more money. We got 200k just for finishing finalists last season.

Finished last in the group, only getting those first three points. Lost away 2-1 last year's finalist Deportivo, lost to Celtic home 1-3 and away 2-0, then lost 1-2 away to Hannover when we were winning, had a CB sent off after 15 minutes, and got scored the 1-2 on a free kick on the 95th minute. Then, Deportivo killed us 1-4 with a goal disallowed and two posts by us. It happens.

I have no idea how that guy managed to win the CL; I am barely able to get through stages and cannot sign anybody else than who I have. Oh well.

My best player (Ngassa, tanzanian right-winger) is wanted by a whole bunch of clubs and is "feeling the pressure". Which means he's always on poor/very poor morale and never above average form (about 6.80 average rating). However nobody offers more than 25.5K€ for him, which is ridiculously low given that doesn't even pay a month of wages of my team, I've sold two youngsters for 100K each earlier in the season. He's got another 18 months on his contract. What do I do?

Transfers: Brought in a young center mid for free, let go a bunch of youngsters who were worth nothing. I did push up to the first team a GK and CB from the youth system, who even though were nothing more than bench meat...I just felt bad not having a single Welsh player. They did get some minutes.

- Champions League

We cruised by Slovenian Rudar (7-2 agg) and Belgian Lokeren (4-2 agg, even though they had a better team), to then go head to head against thew last obstacle before the group stages, Omonoia Nicosia from Cyprus. The club is worth around ten times more than us and they had 9 regular internationals from several countries, so even though we were ahead on the coefficients and were supposed to get a weaker club, we just got the best club out of the eight possible options (most of the other teams were all gray, but we just didn't get lucky).

We lost away 3-1, with that third goal coming on the 90th minute. On the second leg, we managed a 2-0 lead at the ending of the game, to then get scored on the 90th minute. Two last minute goals which left us out of the group stages, and out of lots, lots of money.

- Euro cup

We were drawed with Hannover 96, last year's finalist Deportivo, and Scotland's giants, Celtic. We were not expecting much, but a 6-1 opening to the German side at home gave us hopes. We collected losses on the next five games, even though we deserved more in most of them, but we came out as last in the group. Still, a good run.

League

- Even with the European games, we managed not to get too far away from the lead, and we ultimately got it back around the second half of the season, securing the league three games away from the end of the year...Lanelli finished second, which is always nice

Welsh Cup
- Beat Port Talbot 2-0, to then do the same, away, to Bangor 1-3. Lanelli beat us on the quarterfinals at their stadium, 3-1. As of today, we have played 12 of the past 15 Cup games away from our home...the draws are a little dodgy, and I am starting to get a little annoyed that, once we get onto the final stages of this cup, 90% of the games "happen" to be away. Oh well.

- Part of the reason why we didn't do better in Europe and got more points in the league was because mighty Angeli missed 4 months with a broken elbow. That definitely hurt us, but Nikolaou continued to kick them in just like last season. Charis Iliadis got ahold of the starting spot as a goalkeeper, and was also called for the national team of Cyprus, which was really cool, as we only have a couple of African internationals.

- As for the rest, Jones, Kerr and Niang were class, as usual.

- Since Lanelli did not win anything this year, I am now 4 points away from Legg as the best manager in Wales, which would mean one Welsh Cup (4 points) or a league (8 points) away

- After approving improvements in both youth and training facilities, both were cancelled by the new president (he waited until the very last day, too) due to lack of funds...even though we have around £6m sitting there. I guess I'll have to wait until we touch 10 mil or something...and building or remodeling the stadium is a no-no also, even though we fill the 550 seats every European game we have.

- If we happen to win the league next year, we will have the record for most leagues in the history of it, passing Barry Town with eight, whom we tie now. Pretty cool seeing as we won our first league exactly eleven years ago. We have won eight out of the last eleven leagues.

- 14 years later...I am a favorite of the fans, but only under favorite personnel. Yay.

- Season passes - 36, one more than last year.
- Attendance - 233 in average, 15 more than last year.
- Club's value - £4.6m - £.9m more than last year.
- Sponsorship - Still 50k per year.
- Match/Season ticket - £10/£82 - Same as last year.
- The league is...up six spots, we are now number 94 and officially a two star league! We are now officially better than Denmark's first division
- The club has gone up 21 places, we are now 159.
- The league is also now number 29 as of coefficients. Two spots up more, and one of our three Euro cup spots will start one round later!

- Aims for next season:
1. To see if we can find some better players from the youth system, although i doubt it. I'm trying though.
2. To do whatever we can to get to the CL group stages!

We finally did it! We have qualified for the 2024/25 Champions League group stages

We have been drawn with:

Benfica - The Portuguese were the Uefa Cup's 2020/21 winners.

Girondins Bordeaux - The French have finished semifinalists and quarter finalists in the Uefa Cup for the past two years, and are usual in the CL group stages, where they tricke down to the final Euro stages from there.

Mighty, mighty Barça! In the past 4 years, Barcelona have won a Uefa Cup, a Champions League, and have gotten to another CL final. Enough said.

We are probably going to get trashed game after game, but you know what? We don't care! Barcelona will have to come to Wales to play in our stadium with 550 seated spectators!

Also, just for getting to the group stages, we have received £6m, which was exactly what we had atn...so we had just doubled our money books. BAM.

Edit: We lost our first game home, 3-6 to Barcelona, the fans were never happier for such a crazy loss!

I have no idea how that guy managed to win the CL; I am barely able to get through stages and cannot sign anybody else than who I have. Oh well.

I know what you mean, since qualifying for the Champions League in 2013 I've only managed to make it to the Champions League knockout stage once in six attempts, but my national/club coefficient and league rep is slowly increasing, and the players I can sign slowly getting better, so until they stop increasing I'll keep at it - although my players are still a mile away from the standard of the big players in the Champions League!

It has happened. Lanelli, on 10th place and 18 points away from 1st, has sacked Andy Legg. Even though I am really happy our rivals are doing so badly, I am kind of sad that old Andy is out of the team where he was for 15 years. We had sort of a Wenger-Ferguson thing going. That being said, I am now clearly on the run to overtake his spot as manager with more silverware in the history of Wales.

Transfers: We only brought5 in two centerbacks, one as a loan from Scotland, a young, tall guy who got a red card in the first minute of the first game he played, and he did not play much more after that. We brought Harris a a replacement for...well, the replacement. We also felt as a couple of guys could be let go to give minutes to the youngsters, so three players left.

- Champions League

We had a longer run than we expected. We cruised by HB 7-1 on aggregate, and then, Swedish Halmstad got on the way. They shot four times and score four times in the first leg, leaving a score of 4-1 in their stadium. Honestly I was thinking more about the Euro stages ahead...when we managed a 5-1 score at home, to win the leg (even though they, once again, shot once and score 100% of their shots).

So we were, once again, onto the last round before the group stages. As usual, of all the possible lower coefficient teams, we got the worst one, but this time, we didn't care. They got a guy sent off at their stadium on the first game, and we massacred them 6-0. They won at Port Talbot 0-2, but it didn't matter. We were on the group stages...

...Group stages in which we did not manage a single point lol. We lost to Barcelona 3-6 home and 4-0 away, and to Bourdeaux 1-5 and 0-5. Benfica was a bit closer, as we lost 0-2 at Portugal, and 1-2 home. The group was so strong, Barcelona did not even get into the next stage...and they won the Euro cup. And Benfica got to the semifinals. So yeah, it was a good run.

- Llanelli collapsed, Legg was sacked, and with them gone, we didn't really have a competitor. We won the league over twenty points ahead of second place, and playing the last third of the season with the youngsters to give them minutes.

Loosemores Cup
- We beat Haverfordwest, Cambrian, Bridgend and local rivals Port Talbo 4-0 in the final to re-clain the title. We are now the team with more Loosemores Cups in the history, with seven; five of those under my managing.

Welsh Cup
- We trashed Newport 6-1 in the 4th round, and then, we played home in a quarterfinal of the Welsh Cup for the first time in 7 years....to then see this happen. We held on til the penalties, but lost 1-2.

- The same players were the key ones, with Niang going out to Africa on his spare time and becoming an African Cup finalist. Ashley Jones won player of the year in Wales, and also got the third best goal in the CL season. Angeli finished in the top 5 of the CL scorers, with 6 goals; Niang second best assitant with 8, and the team in general, the second most scoring one, with 24.

- Simpson got best young player of the year.

- Now that Legg is gone (Lanelli did not even qualify for the European playoffs), and since we won the league, i am now as the best manager in Wales in the history. Legg is now 4 points behind, but without a club; and the third one is around 4 league titles apart from me.

- We have agreed to improve the youth facilities again (this time they approved it after waiting for a year); they will be completed in November. The board also gave away £1.1m in dividends; the club has around £9m in the books. We are also now the club with the most league titles ever, with nine.

- Season passes - 37, one more than last year.
- Attendance - 233 in average, 15 more than last year.
- Club's value - £7m - £2.4m more than last year.
- Sponsorship - Still 50k per year.
- Match/Season ticket - £10/£82 - Same as last year.
- The league was up an amazing 25 spots, and we are now 68th, awesome. We are now ahead of the first divisions of Sweden, Serbia, Norway, and even Scotland.
- The club has gone up another 30 places, we are now 129th.
- The league is also 27th, up from 29th last year. One of our teams now will start one Euro round later. Sounds good to me, these other teams need all the help they can get to get through the round!

- Aims for next season:
1. Repeat CL group stages!
2. To win the Welsh Cup for the only second time in my spell here.

The champions league attendance will probably be capacity of how many seated he has in his ground.

Yeah, the averahe attendance for every single European game I have ever played has been 550, my seated capacity. I have asked the board to spend some of the now £12m in remodeling the stadium, but no cigar.

I knew the difference between the 1st and 2nd divisions wasn't huge and so thought i could avoid relegation. I started well and after a mid season blip really picked up to finish 3rd and qualify for europe for the first time. Key to my form was my performance at home gaining 37 points out of 45.
Only downside is that the team is a million pounds in debt, so i need a good run in europe next year. My facilities have been downgraded this year and in spite of being really good by hungarian standards no youth players have yet appeared who could make it into the first team.

B.W.G, it's been ages since you've updated us... how is the league rep going?

Not played it in ages, all I can remember is that the Welsh Prem is on 3 stars and the rest of the league suck. I kind of realised I'd be dominating for along time especially beating the new team 20-0 (even though they finished with 9 men). The other interesting fact is 11/12 teams are full time.

Not played it in ages, all I can remember is that the Welsh Prem is on 3 stars and the rest of the league suck. I kind of realised I'd be dominating for along time especially beating the new team 20-0 (even though they finished with 9 men). The other interesting fact is 11/12 teams are full time.

Still have the save though so it I'll do some more on Wednesday!!!

You really won one of your league games 20-0?? Wow, and I thought my 8-0 was impressive - obviously not!

Quite interesting that you have so many full time teams now, I think in my Dunloy save the Northern Irish League is now 2/2.5* rep (they have just earnt a 2nd CL spot thanks to my hard work), however, aside from my side, the only other full time side (Linfield) has reverted back to semi-pro, and no other sides look likely to go pro (or win a match in Europe).

Did you help the other sides out with money / players, or did they do it on their own? I'd love some competition, I've now been undefeated in the Northern Irish domestic league for close to 5 seasons!

Not many transfers; as it has been happening lately, we simply cannot find better players than the ones we have. Brought in a Polish right defender who played well but for some reason, did not want to renew his contract. Maybe it was because he got red carded, I fined him, and the ENTIRE team asked got ****ed off. I had to have 25 different conversations addressing the same issue.

We also signed a left wing from Everton who didn't play much and left at the end of the year, and a promising Brittish midfielder in Jim Terry, who is now being called for the U-21 and U-19 English side.

Even though our youth facilities are now more than decent, nothing good comes through them, so that didn't help either.

- Champions League

Islandic IBV was no match (8-1 agg), and Ujpest, from Hungary, either (7-2). We did get a fierce rival in Dinamo Zagreb, and after a 0-0 draw home, we lost 0-2 in Zagreb. They shot eight times, one in goal...and scored twice. Sure.

- Euro cup

We qualified directly to the group stages after losing to Dinamo, and were drawed with Anorthosis from Cyprus, Belgian Brujas and mighty Rangers from Scotland. We were, for the first time in a European group stages, better seeded than the lower sides, and on paper we were the third better seeded team of the group before Anorthosis.

We managed three ties in the first three games, to then lose our fourth game to Rangers in Scotland 3-1. We did win our first game of the eyar against Anorthosis 3-2 home, and would have had chances to qualify if Rangers had managed not to lose to Brujas home...which they did. I was a little ****ed off Rangers had donde that, and after we snatched a 0-1 win in Belgium against all odds with one goal in the 90th minute by home-boy Roberts, we were left scratching our heads, one point away from the team we had just beaten. Something as easy as a win or draw by Rangers againsr Brujas in Scotland would have seen us on the next stage.

- Llanelli took over the 1st place pretty soon and stood there for a while, but lost air towards the end of the season and we claimed our spot. Aberyswyth gaves us a run for our money and we couldn't claim the title until three games before the end.

Loosemores Cup
- We lost to Aberyswyth away 1-3 in a game where we were simply too tired to put up a fight after 7 games that month...and to the fact that, on that game, we had seven players away on international duty, and three injured.

Welsh Cup
- Only allowed one goal in five games to claim our second Welsh Cup ever, taking revenge on Aberyswyth by getting the trophy with a 2-0 win.

- Angeli, Collins and Nikolaou took turns to net them in, with Niang and Pearson giving them away from the wings. Angeli and goalkeeper Iliadis both were called for the national team of Cyprus several times, and Niang with Senegal and Vazquez with Honduras were active part on their nation's qualifying to the World Cup. Niang made it to the round of 16.

- After league and cup this year, I now have 16 titles in my 15 years here. I am the best manger to ever manage in Wales by far, and if I repeat everything I have done again, I will be in number 10 of best Spanish managers lol. The fans consider me now an icon.

- We now have excellent youth facilities, and our training ones will be bettered by October this year. Also, the youth ones will be improved next year. Seeing as no matter how good the facilities are, the players do not look much better, this might be money out the window...but we'll try.

- Niang got player of the year in Wales, and Terry, young player of the year. Ten of our players were in the best eleven of the year. The board has just given away around £600k in dividends.

- Also, and along with the previous posts; for the first time I've seen, a couple of times are now professional.

- Season passes - 38, one more than last year.
- Attendance - 347 in average, 112 more than last year.
- Club's value - £8.25m - £1.25m more than last year.
- Sponsorship - Still 50k per year.
- Match/Season ticket - £10/£82 - Same as last year.
- The league was up an amazing 10 places, and we are now in number 58. This is looking promising.
- The club has gone up another a whooping 44 places, we are officially in the Top 100! Number 86!
- The league is now 26th, in coefficient. We're 11 places away from earning one extra European spot. Far away,

- Aims for next season:
- CL group stages, CL group stages, CL group stages!

You really won one of your league games 20-0?? Wow, and I thought my 8-0 was impressive - obviously not!

Quite interesting that you have so many full time teams now, I think in my Dunloy save the Northern Irish League is now 2/2.5* rep (they have just earnt a 2nd CL spot thanks to my hard work), however, aside from my side, the only other full time side (Linfield) has reverted back to semi-pro, and no other sides look likely to go pro (or win a match in Europe).

Did you help the other sides out with money / players, or did they do it on their own? I'd love some competition, I've now been undefeated in the Northern Irish domestic league for close to 5 seasons!

I've not helped any of the teams out but TNS and Neath are starting to breakaway from the rest of the pack but they're along way off me. I think its down to me being the champs league holders so us and TNS go in group stages and Neath are in qualifiers. Although Neath are the only Welsh team since us to reach the Euro Cup group stages.

As for the 20-0 win....here you go. I also beat them 10-0 in the return game.

League / Domestic Cups: After going undefeated in the league the past two seasons, I of course wanted to continue that this season, and whilst I did manage to again go undefeated, I only managed 25 wins and 13 draws, resulting in 14 points less than last season. Still - with 116 league games without a loss now, I can't complain!

Once again we were seeded 3rd for the group draw, but that didn't mean we were handed an easy group (is there such thing as an easy CL Group?), up against Arsenal, At. Madrid, and minnows CFR Cluj - at least I was confident of not coming last!

I managed 2-1(A) and 5-1(H) wins against CFR Cluj, and 2-5(H) and 1-4(A) losses to Arsenal - no surprises there. The test came against At. Madrid, where I managed a lucky 1-0 home win, but then an unlucky 0-1 away loss, to end with 9 points. Whilst that was enough to qualify in some groups, it was not in this group, as At. Madrid managed a surprise 3-0 win against Arsenal to seal 2nd spot (and eventually made it all the way to the final!).

Whilst we were unable to match last season's feat of qualifying from the CL group stage, there was once again the Europa League knockout rounds to deal with, and I was much more comfortable against the 'second best' teams in Europe. My amazing Europa League journey went as follows:

Europa League

1st Knockout Round v FC Groningen: 2-2(A), 5-2(H) - An even away leg, but dominated the home leg, coming from behind to win with Moses Jagne getting yet another hat-trick

2nd Knockout Round v Aberdeen: 4-0(H), 2-1(A) - Dominated the home leg against my 'parent club', with Jagne getting a brace. Away leg was much closer, but an own goal gave me the win

Qtr Final v Porto: 1-1(H), 3-1(A) - First quality opponent I had faced in this Europa League run, the home leg was an even 1-1 draw, and whilst Porto dominated much of the away leg, I managed a couple of goals on the counter attack to secure an undeserved win

Semi Final v Florentine: 3-1(A), 2-0(H) - A fairly even away leg, but a hat-trick from Matthew Newman put us in a good position, and Newman added two more in the home leg which we controlled, to get us into the Europa League Final against OM!

However, the semi-final win came at a cost, with 2 yellow cards resulting in 2 suspensions, and two more injuries prior to the final, meaning I had to field 3 U18 players on the bench as I did not have enough eligible players!

Europa Leauge Final v OM: 0-5 - Whilst I had played them twice previously in the Champions League for two losses, I was confident I could turn it around this season, despite the missing players. However, what actually happened was the worst loss in Dunloy history! To be fair, it was actually a close game, but OM managed an amazing 4 goals within 8 minutes to completely blow Dunloy out of the water. Whilst the loss was disappointing, it was a great run, and was enough to push Northern Ireland up the coefficient rankings and earn them a second Champions League place in two seasons time!

Also, whilst ultimately unsuccessful, hopefully this cup run will increase the reputation of the club and let me attract some semi-quality players (and shock horror maybe someone from outside the UK, which still hasn't happened!)

Team Summary / Star Players

Whilst I did bring in 10 more players this season for a total of $8M, a lot of them never really broke into the team and I'm hoping they will develop in the future. However, the big signing of the season, costing $5M from Fulham and breaking previous transfer records, was:

Ricky Jones: Whilst I don't think he was worth $5M (most of my transfer budget), the two reasons I spent that much on him was that I was short on midfielders, and more importantly I still couldn't attract anyone better to club, no matter how much money I threw at them! Whilst he had a solid season with 61 games at 7.12, he wasn't the best Dunloy player, but at 21 I'm hoping he will improve in the future.

However, the Fan's Player of the Season, top scorer, and my personal favorite, for the second season running, was:

Moses Jagne: Whist not quite as good as his debut season, he still managed 33 goals, 21 assists and 9 MoM at 7.35 from 58 games, and his stats look to be improving! He was single handedly responsible for our great European run, with 14 goals from 17 European games, let's hope he can keep on improving!

Whilst the average age of the team is still only 23, some of my key players are now 24/25 and in their prime, so whilst I will be looking to keep strengthening the side, I'm thinking I could have a good opportunity in the next couple of years once this squad gets in their prime

Finances / Facilities

Another good European run, another tidy profit, this time $7.5M despite spending another $8M on transfers and $10M on facilities upgrades. Total bank balance is now over $42M, although the board still only give me a $9M transfer budget.

Well, that's depressing. I'm in 2026 and still haven't gotten past the group stages of anything. Maybe that's because I usually win nothing on FM lol.

Regarding the conversation about how the other teams are doing in Europe, same here; nobody has ever made it to any group stages yet, even though Lanelli got through one round, and taking advantage of his one more round due to better coefficients, was one round short of getting to the Uefa Cup group stages.

I do have a question for you guys; do any of you have any more European spots than the 4 I've had for decades? How has it affected the league European playoffs? Just curious.

Anyway, onto the news: For the second time in the history of the club, we are in the CL group stages. We moved past Daugaba, Stael and Stabaek to clinch a group stage place.

The group:

Rapid Viena - The Cinderella of the group. They usually don't get past the qualifying CL rounds.

Atletico de Madrid - CL champions in 2019, and semifinalists in 2023, they've also been in two semifinals of the Uefa Cup in the past five years.

Inter - CL champions in 2023 and 2024, they have last year's best striker of the year in Italian Diego Fortunato.

Seeing as I am now third on coefficient in this group, I am really hoping to finish third so I can get a taste for final stage European football!

I chose the Norwegian league, and took over Staal Jørpeland which is a team about 30 minutes from Stavanger with a ferry. Forgot to take a SS of the profile in the beginning, so the one you get is 2 matches into the season. 1 win and 1 draw so far!

WTF, i hink the 11.2 patch screwed up something in Wales. The quarterfinal's losers of the Welsh Cup got £2m, and the semifinal's losers get £8m. I don't even know what you get if you win the thing now. Last year I got £500k for winning it. I think this is going to turn my save into a bunch of rich teams. WTF.

Transfers - Signed a right defender on loan from Scotland, who liked being here but, even though our league is up in reputation, did not want to be bought at the end of the year. Palacios also joined as the first Spaniard in the history of Afan.

- Champions League

Daugava, Ael and Stabaek all fell in the qualifying rounds of the CL, and we were onto the group stages for the second time ever. With Inter, Atletico and Rapid Viena, we knew it would all come down to the points against the Austrians. As expected, both clubs lost all the games against Atletico and Inter. Rapid beat us in Austria 2-1, but we beat them home 2-0, and that was it; we had secured a Uefa Cup spot for the final stages. CL group stages

- Euro cup

The rival in the round of 32 was Spanish Getafe. We played a very valid game in Madrid, were we lost 2-1, with Angeli giving us hope to get through the round in Port Talbot. We ended up losing 3-4 home, in a very crazy game, but one where we just did not have the quality to beat the Spaniards. It continues to amaze me how people around here have the players to get through the beasts better leagues have. Incredible.

League

- We secured a 10 point lead 8 games before the end, and were able to play our youngsters to be stronger in the cups. We have won our fifth consecutive league, and we have now 11 league titles.

- Iliadis in goal is now also starting for Cyprus, and so are Nikolaous and Angeli. Angeli, Collins and Nikolaou were once again superb upfront, and Matty Simpson and Terry just ripped it from the midfield. Terry won young player of the year for the second consecutive year. Honduran defender Vazquez was also player of the year in Wales. Nine of our players were within the best eleven of the season.

- The club is doing great as of today. Almost £15m in the bank, £1,4m dividends paid for the shareholders, and the facilities continue to improve year after year, even though the stadium is a no-no.

- Next year is going to be very difficult, I think. Several players do not want to renew their contracts since they want to play somewhere better; one of them being our starting goalkeeper, Iliadis. We cannot find a decent replacement to save our lives, either. Niang, Terry and Simpson are in the same situation; we either sell them this summer, or they leave free. I think that is going to take a big tall in the European competitions; I've done everything I could to keep them, but no cigar, mostly due to the league and team reps, I suppose. Yet another mistery of how others keep the players and win everything while I can't really keep them the moment they become adults. I do not expect not even win European silverware, but get to a quarterfinal or semifinal anytime soon.

- Season passes - 38, one more than last year.
- Attendance - 381 in average, 34 more than last year.
- Club's value - £11m - £2.75m more than last year.
- Sponsorship - £85k per year, up from the 50k from the past few years.
- Match/Season ticket - £10/£82 - Same as last year.
- The league was up another 8 places, to 50.
- The club went down 2 spots to 88, interesting seeing as we have been doing better and better.
- The league is still 26th, in coefficient.

- Aims for next season:
- I guess I'll have to rebuild the starting eleven without looking like there is a transition period in the club.

Our first season in the top flight was a tough one. We started very slow and didn't get our first win before the 15th game, although we got our fair share of draws to at least manage some points. After getting some good wins the winter break stopped our form. Upon our return we continued in a trot and struggled to get points. Towards the end of the season there were a change in mentality in the players, as if though they realized the posibility of relegation. We ended the season on a 7 match unbeaten run, to get us up and above the relegation spot. Some lucky results the last couple of games helped us to finish in 7th. However we were far adrift the "big three" here in Austria. Red Bull Salsburg, Austria Wien and Sturm Graz ran away early on and finished with a gap of almost 30 points down to 4th place. It seems my goals must be to get ahead of the pack below the "big three" before I can think of challenging for the Champions League spots.

In the ÖFB-Cup we were handed easy draws as far as the semis. We met lower league teams all the way, before fellow Bundesliga outfit FC Admira were our opponents in the semi-finals. Emin Sulimani scored the only goal of the match in our 0-1 victory. This ment we were going to the final! The only team standing in our way of our first major trophy was Austria Wien, who allready had won the league the week before and were looking for the double. We were in good form, however and led by a brilliant Sergey Politevich we managed to win 2-0 and claiming the cup! This also ensure us a place in the Europa League next season where we enter in the 4th qualifying round.

Financially we are in trouble. We are losing money every month, and the chairman has injected some cash in our coffers to keep us alive. Still with european matches next season it could mean we are heading for brighter days, hopefully.

Decided to make a proper effort for promotion, which included assuming my intentions to the board (season objective: promotion, instead of top half), and giving top win bonus to my players, despite the club being in need of a little money. Thankfully I managed to sell two youngsters for about 100K each, and my board amazingly agreed to let me scout all over the world, so now I could actually buy players, and from anywhere I wanted. I went to search the african clubs and brought a pack of 6 players from there.

League

A shaky start with a worrying draw in the opening match at Dragovoljac quickly turned into a string of wins and we were in no time leading the table. We then lost to this years surprise team Medjimurje, letting Croatia Sesvete lead for a while but soon we were back at the top and went into the winter break leading by a solid 5 points.

After the winter break things got even easier as we won 7 matches in a row, while the other teams couldn't decide on who was going to emerge as our rivals and everyone let us escape. We had a lead of 13 points but when the games that could clinch promotion mathematically arrived, we slipped twice and only finally did it when we beat Pomorac with 3 games to go. Amusingly, the players must've partied a bit too hard as we lost 5-1 right after that, our biggest ever defeat. In the end we beat Slaven Belupo again to gather a mammoth 16 points lead over them, also setting a new 2.HNL points record, a spectacular 67 from 30 matches.

GK - Gérson Coimbra - He's been with us for a few years now, but only now I decided to try him as I felt he was finally ready. Did well as I played him every single competitive minute of the year.

DR - Alex Kalou - The cheapest from the new african pack, was perhaps the dodgiest player in our back four but not that much of a liability.

DL - Marcel Novko - Back in the starting eleven after a few attempts to throw him into the team that had gone horribly wrong, this time did quite well.

DC - Ivan Buljubasic - One half of a legendary duo of centre-backs (for this level), was on top of his game all year long.

DC - Vladisa Vasic - An amazing season that saw him score an incredible 8 goals from set-pieces and dominate the defensive part of the game as well. 7.52 average rating!

MC - Oumar Ettien - Olimpija's most expensive player ever (12K!) did well as much as the most defensive-minded midfielder can do as this position never shines in my tactic.

MC - Mario Gregurina - Poljak was getting old and I figured it was Gregurina's turn after 2 years of bench anonimity. Came alive late in the year with a few goals, scoring 2 in the game that gave us promotion.

AML - Igor Acimovic - Another player that came alive late in the season (after an injury), is still one of our stars and has now became the player with more appearances under my command: 122 league games. An assist machine.

AMR - Mrisho Ngassa - Struggled badly for a while with the pressure of a lot of teams being interested in him, yet was still a key player as he's just too talented for this level.

SC - Andrija Jukic - I was worried that our star striker Sablic was now too old, thankfully Jukic rised up to the occasion and became the league's top goalscorer plus player of the year.

SC - Josip Fucek - Picking Sablic's direct replacement was more of an headache! I tried a few different options in here and ended up having to stick with Fucek who is aging rapidly as well and certainly not good enough for the 1.HNL next year.

Conclusions

A nice season to chill out to, after the frustrations of the previous years, as promotion was all but guaranteed from mid-season onwards. However I'm a bit wary of playing in the 1.HNL - I've played against 1.HNL teams in the cup for the last 3 seasons and suffered 3 home defeats. Thankfully the value of all my players has gone way up after promotion, and a new board has decided to take a 775K loan with relatively soft payments, which should provide us some cash to invest into the future.

A slightly worrying thing is that I cannot use the same trick of raiding Africa for lots of players again, as I can only play 6 foreigners at once. They do get the croatian nationality very rapidly, in 2 years, which means that 1 year from now I'll be able to do it again as everyone will stop being counted as a foreigner.

League (League Table)
We improved again to take Afan Lido's first welsh premier title after a close fought battle with Llanelli and Haverfordwest. We were clearly the three best teams in the league and my late season signings made the difference.

Europe
Our first taste of european football went well as we got through two rounds of Euro Cup qualifying. In the first qualifying round we drew HJK of Finland. A 1-1 draw in Finland followed by a 3-1 home win saw us through to play Zestaponi of Georgia. A 0-0 draw away was backed up by a 1-0 home win. The 3rd qualifying round saw us play the mighty Partizan Belgrade. We lost 2-0 in Belgrade before getting thumped 4-1 at home to end our european run.

Domestic Cups
An improvement in the Welsh Cup saw us reach the semi finals, falling to Airbus. Our defence of the Loosemoores League Cup ended before it started with a loss to Llanelli in the 1st round.

Transfers (Transfers)
Summer transfers were slow again but as before I managed to pick up some quality free transfers towards the back end of the season. These players were (mostly regens) released by english premier clubs so should have good potential. The pick of the bunch are Scott Holt, Sam Stewart and former Chelsea man Josh McEachran! I also picked up former Swansea City forward Kerry Morgan.

The Numbers
Here are some numbers which should help keep track of the clubs/leagues progress:
Average Attendance - 179 - up 63
Club Value - £300k - up £50K
Sponsership - £6.56k
Club Coefficient - 0.100, 501st

This season was a chance at the title missed as Debrecen, the champions from the last 2 years failed to win in their first 8 games which included a 4-0 hammering by my team. Unfortunately Budafok also made uncertain start with a few poor home results.
Debrecen didn't lose again all season and by the midseason break, after 20 games were top from Budafok on goal difference. I won 7 games in a row after the break to keep up the pressure but Debrecen also won 7 in a row to win the title with a game to spare.
I reached the semi-finals of the league cup before going out.
In the hungarian cup i went all the way to the final for the first time. The final proved a one-sided affair.
In Europe i went out in the 2Q Rd of the Euro cup, losing in my first match to a grey Georgian team 2-1 and only drawing 1-1 at home.

The money situation (i was a million in the red at the time) meant i sold my star keeper Nana, which left me short for the 2nd half of the season. For the fist part of the season Wozniak was on fire but barely scored after nov, luckily Nana took over to end up as my top scorer. I signed Ivan at the start of the season and he provided a real threat from the right wing chipping in with 11 goals.
Kila was his usual solid self with Kouassi providing a great defensive partner.

Try to improve the squad further as much as the financial situation will allow.
Get further in europe this time
Catch Debrecen, last season they made the last qualifying rd of the CL and the euro group stage, this enabled them to spend 4 million on transfers, by comparision i have only ever spent 3K on 1 player in 6 years.

League (League Table)
A second title was secured with a few games to spare. Its seems like a big 3 is forming as Llanelli and Haverfordwest again occupied 2nd and 3rd spots.

Europe (European Results)
A first crack at the Champions Cup and we were continually handed favourable draws. A 13-0 agg win over Spora and a 5-2 agg win over Derry City saw us face Dinamo Zagreb. A 2-2 away draw was followed up by a 2-1 home win to leave us one round away from the group stages. In our way were Zillina. A 0-0 away draw was backed up by a stunning 5-2 win at home to send us into the group stages at the first attempt! Stunning.

We were welcomed to the big boys club by getting spanked 5-1 in Benfica. The fairytale resumed though as we took down FC Kobenhavn 2-1 at home before we secured a stupendous 0-0 draw at the Bernabau where Lewis Price saved Kaka's 90th minute pently. HERO. Reality then took over as Madrid beat us 3-0 in Wales and then Benfica destroyed us 7-0. Even FC Kobenhavn had the cheek to beat us 6-2 in Denmark. Despite being completely outclassed in the second round of matches our 4 points was still enough to come 3rd and leave us in the Euro Cup.

We were drawn with Belgians Lokeren. Winnable. Or so I thought until we lost 4-1 away. Then came the home game, I was in dreamland as we took a 4-0 lead, yes 4-0! But then Lokeren scored twice and our run was over.

Domestic Cups
We took our first Welsh Cup with a 3-0 victoy over Neath. The Loosemoores League Cup saw us come close to a treble but we fell in the semi finals.

Transfers (Transfers)
As pretty much no one decent would sign in the summer I left things until the back end of the season again and picked up some more quality free transfers who hadn't been snapped up yet. Again these players were mostly regens released by english premier clubs. The pick of the bunch are Ben Thompson, Habib Mustafa and Harry Kane.

The Numbers
Here are some numbers which should help keep track of the clubs/leagues progress:
Average Attendance - 251 - up 72
Club Value - £5.5M - up £5.2M
Sponsership - £6.56k
Club Coefficient - 9.850, 163rd - up 9.750, up 338 places

Aims For Next Season
Continue domestic dominance and try to secure a domestic treble.
Try and get into the Champions Cup group stage again.
Improve training facilities to help all the english regens i've signed improve quicker.
Go full time professional.

League / Domestic Cups: What can I say, another season, another 38 undefeated league games - this now brings my league games without losing to 154 - surely this run has to end sooner or later? I also managed to take out all 4 domestic cups to take out the domestic clean sweep for the second time in my career.

One thing to note is that due to my performances in Europe the Premier Division now has 2 CL spots - let's see if the Linfield or any of the other sides can do anything in Europe (note that no Northern Irish team has won a single European game in the last few seasons!)

League Reputation: 42nd (-13) - between Scottish League Cup and Czech First Division
Club Coefficient: 18th (-4) - between At. Madrid and AS Monaco FC
National Coefficient: 12th (0) - between Ukraine and Austria

Europe: Due to the improved national coefficient I started in the 3rd Qual Round this season, and again had no problem getting through to the group stage:

The Group stage saw me up against Porto, Deportivo and HSV - quite a reasonable draw as far as CL Groups go. I started well, with 2-1 home win against Deportivo, an unlucky 0-1 away loss against Porto, and a 2-1 home win against HSV, but then I slipped up with a 1-1 away draw against HSV and a 1-3 away loss against Deportivo. Suddenly, I needed a point against group leader Porto, or for results to my way, in order to qualify.

Things against Porto started badly, and by the 50th minute I was 0-3 down! But then a red card for Porto turned things around, and Dunloy goals in the 54th, 66th and 83rd minute saw Dunloy get 1 point which was enough for Dunloy to go past the CL group stage for the second time in Dunloy's history!

CL 1st Knockout Round v Bayer 04 Leverkusen: 2-1(H), 3-1(A): A tight home leg saw Dunloy walk away with a 2-1 win thanks to a missed penalty by the Germans. The away leg was dominated by Leverkusen, and they went up 1-0 in the 26th minute. This stayed this way until the 76th minute, where Dunloy scored a penalty, followed by two coutner-attack goals in the 85th and 90th minute which saw Dunloy leave with a 5-2 aggregate win!

CL Qtr Final v Manchester United: 1-4(A), 3-3(H): The away leg was completly dominated by Man U, and a 35 year old Wayne Rooney dominated, scoring 2 in a 1-4 loss. The home leg looked to be heading the same way, with United 0-2 up within 20 minutes - but then a red card for 33 year old Hernandez gave Dunloy a way back into the game, and managed to come away with a 3-3 draw in the home leg - respecatble, but still getting knocked out 4-7 on aggregate. Interestingly, United went on to win the Champions League in penalties against Man City.

Team Summary / Star Players

After my great Europa League cup run last season, I think there was a noticable increase in the club reputation, because, for the first time ever, I signed two non-UK/Irish players, a Bulgarian goalkeeper and a Brazilian / German striker. Whilst neither of them had a massive impact, they are both young players who will hopefully develop in the future.

Of the 11 transfers in for $9.75M, the bulk of that was spent on Scottish striker Kevin Lee from Celtic in the January transfer window:

Kevin Lee: Costing a club record $8.25M, the 21 year old was definatly over priced, but given I had trouble getting anyone half decent to join, I decided to splash out on him. Unfortunatly he was injured just after he joined and only managed 15 games at 7.08 for the season, but at 21 years old he is already one of the best Dunloy players and hopefully he can inprove in the years to come!

Fan's Player of the Year, and Northern Irish Player of the Year, was 24 year old midfielder Stephen Holland:

Stephen Holland: In his 4th season in Dunloy after starting with Liverpool, he really shined, averaging 7.51 in league games and 8.1 in cup games - unfortunatly his European games brought his total record to 43 games, 12 goals, 11 assists and 6 MoM at 7.36 - but that is still a fantastic record!

Whilst the squad is looking stronger than ever with fairly good depth, the bad news is that 6 of my starting XI have their contract expiring at the end of next season, and simply refuse to sign a contract - in particular my starting keeper for who I have been offered $5M! Now I have the decision of whether to cash in or keep them for another year and lose them for nothing... given I already have $45M in the bank I suspect I hold on to them for one last season, but I suspect there will be some serious rebuilding after next season.

Finances / Facilities

Another good European run, another tidy profit, this time $3M despite spending a record $9.75M on transfers and $10M on facilities upgrades. Total bank balance is now $45M.

Actually, I've just gone through my best 18 and they all refuse to sign a new contract. In fact, of my whole senior squad, only a handful of players will agree to renew their contracts, which is strange as I have never had this problem with my Dunloy squad - I wonder if it has anything to do with the latest patches?

I have recently been flickering between different challenges, and not being able to concentrate on one alone. However, I have now started one on this challange, and fully intend to see this through. Although I am not saying I will be able to complete the ultimate aim...

Although I have not read the entire thread fully, I decided to go with a nation that I though was rarely used, so have plumped for the might of the Slovakian Second Division. It was a tough choice when the newly promoted sides were made apparent, and after much deliberation it was Spartak Myjava that drew the short straw and ended up with me as there manager.

A great season by the pride of Loeben. We started good, but it was soon clear only two teams were competing for the title this season, Red Bull Salzburg and Austria Wien. They had a good lead eary on, so the fight was for third place. Rapid Wien, Mattersburg and ourself were the ones who managed to get slightly away from the rest of the pack. Lead by a great season from defender Sergey Politevich, we managed to secure the spot, but only in the final match. Many others have also exceeded espectations this season, but more on that later.

In the ÖFB-Cup we were handed easy draws as far as the quarterfinals, meeting only lower league teams. The quarterfinal, however, lined us up against Red Bull Salzburg, one of the giants in Austria. In a thriller of a match, where Sergey Politevich once again showed his skill by scoring two goals, it ended 4-3 to us, and we were trough to the semis. There we were up against Sturm Graz, a team we have struggled to beat. We were clear underdogs, but I felt we had a chance if we took our chances. From start to finish they were all over us, but a great performance by our young goalkeeper Christian Benítez we managed to scrape through with a 2-1 win. We had a chance of retaining the cup! When I noticed who our opponent in the final was, I were rather surprised. SC Horn, a lower league team had managed to reach the final of the austrian ÖFB-Cup! They had beaten out a couple of teams from Erste Liga, but had managed to avoid any Bundesliga teams. However, they had a decent squad and could cause some trouble, but still, we should have a good enough team to beat them comfortably. I don't know what happended, if it was complacement or something else, but the final started the worst way it could. In the sixth minutte they got a freekick on the edge of the box, suddenly the ball hit the net and we were 0-1 down. When we equalized after 14 minuttes I was hoping we had awaken enough to get a couple of more goals in. Their goalkeeper had other plans. He was like a brick wall, and we just couldn't get anything more past him. In the end it all went to pens. We scraped through scoring only on 3 out of 7, but luckily that was enough seeing they missed one more. We had retained the title, but SV Horn have more reason to celebrate than us. Still, a title is a title. This once again means we were in Europa League 4th qualifying round next year.

Speaking of Europa League, we had our first european stint this season. After watching some of the other teams battle trough the first three qualifying rounds, our name was in the draw for the fourth. Unsurprisingly, we were not seeded for the draw which saw us up against turkish outfit Bucaspor. The first match was away, and at half time we were 0-1 down not having anything resembling a chance. We chanced it around some, and it payed of as we got the vital away goal when Roland Linz scored. After that it was all about holding on and not conceeding anymore. Finally it ended 2-1 to Bucaspor. The rematch at home was a different matter, here we came out guns blazing, but couldn't find the goal. In the second half it was once again Sergey Politevich who managed to get us on the scoreboard. This of course prompted the turks to start attacking again. We saw our chances to take some counter attacks, and doubled our lead by an own goal a couple of minuttes before full time. In the end we managed to avoid conceeding any and we were through to the group stage after the 3-2 aggregate win.

In the group stage we were drawn against Spartak Moscow of Russia, Nancy of France and FK København of Denmark. We ended bottom as expected, but got two points and left with our honor.

Finances are looking good, much thanks to our european adventure, but also for the sale of some players. We picked up a young norwegian at the start of the season hoping he could develope into a good player, but after only half a season we were approaced by norwegians Tromsø. They wanted to know how much we would want to let them talk to the player. I were reluctant, but set a price of £1.1M hoping it would scare them away, but to my surprise they accepted. Easy come, easy go apparently. We are now got a steady £1.5M in the bank and things are looking good. Hopefully we might be able to challenge even further for the title next season. I want to play with the big boys in the Champions League, but I'll manage with Europa League for now.

The first season for Olimpija at the croatian top level brought a lot of financial goodies: a 1.5M€ TV money prize filled our pockets, our squad players were now worth a whole lot more, and a lot more fans were expected to come watch our matches. This allowed us to spend a lot more money in wages and transfers, but I saved a bit of that as I couldn't find expensive transfer targets that were worth it - decided to persuade the board to improve some of our facilities instead. The media predicted us to end 10th, just enough to stay up (11th goes to playoff, 12th goes down) and I was confident we could do it as Junak and Slaven Belupo seemed particularly poor opponents.

The championship

We didn't have a good start. Got 1 point only from the first 5 matches and we had already lost to Slaven Belupo (who I thought we were going to fight with to stay up). We were last! Everything changed with two big away wins (3-0, 5-0 over Istra 1963 and Junak), and we slowly started climing the table. And climbing.. and climbing... and climbing. By December we had a great string of 5 consecutive wins (including over the giants Hajduk and Dinamo!!) and we were now in a safe mid-table position in 6th.

We had to sell our star Mrisho Ngassa in January as Molde paid the release clause, yet this is where things got really funky as we kept on doing our thing while no other team would truly gel into great form. We started getting into the fight for european places and I noticed we were actually closing in on the table leaders. A fight broke out for the title between Dinamo, Hajduk, Sibenik and us, and 3 games from the end we were all within 3 points. 2 games from the end, all 4 teams were within 2 points! We won our game and then it was all between Dinamo and Olimpija for the last match, even if Dinamo had to lose points for us to become surprise champions. Unfortunately we lost at Cibalia while Dinamo won at Sibenik, but it was still completely crazy to grab 2nd place and have been so close! Specially after having started the season so badly...

Cup

The bug struck again and we didn't play in the cup. Maybe that was fixed in the latest patch but I'm still on 11.1.1 as I don't want my tactics to stop working if I install it!

GK - Gérson Coimbra - ****ed off a few team-mates as he reacted badly to the interest of a lot of clubs in him, but is still #1.

DR - Nikola Tkalcic - Good season from this new signing who arrived from Bosnia, dominated the position all year long.

DL - Marcel Novko - Did okay but I can notice that he's struggling a little more at this higher level.

DC - Vladica Vasic - Already captain at the age of 23 as he has become one of our greatest stars.

DC - Stipe Buric - Climbed to the first eleven as Buljubasic was a bit disappointing, however had a bad injury ending his season early.

MC - Dalla Coulibaly - This experienced signing had a solid year, but probably won't have much of a future here as I've just paid 140K€ for a very promising argentinian midfielder who is giving him a good fight.

MC - Oumar Ettien - Used in a slightly more attacking role this season and he progressed seamlessly along with the club.

AML - Igor Acimovic - Had a brilliant start to the season, but a long-term injury hit him later on and his temporary replacement Raphael Toure actually had an higher average rating.

AMR - Mrisho Ngassa - Couldn't stop him from moving to Norway in January as Molde paid the release clause. We're missing him as we haven't found a decent substitute yet.

ST - Andrija Jukic - Another player who had a seamless transition to the 1.HNL, scored loads and gained his first cap for Australia.

ST - Seydou Diabakaté - I had a big problem with strikers again, until this guy suddenly started scoring a lot. I was just about to give up on him, had something like 2 goals in 25 games for the club!

Conclusions

This was a mega exciting season as we went from a horrible start into almost winning a crazy second championship in a row, in different divisions. The sky is our limit now as I expect we'll get a lot more money next year from Europa League and domestic TV money. I'm just not sure if we can already win the title but we'll certainly try our best.

Meanwhile a very interesting opponent is emerging in the form of Granicar Zulanja, who finally was back to the 2.HNL and immediately gained promotion to the 1.HNL. They're the 3rd richest club in Croatia worth 12M€ (we're worth 1.1M) thanks to the backing of their billionare, of course. I'm looking forward to facing them again!

Some fabulous updates in here, great to see such effort being put into this. A shame that the same cannot be said for me Here is the league table for a season that saw us continue our good work and maintain our domestic title, and besides that there is nothing else I feel like reporting on. We negotiated our way through to the Champions League group stage for the first time and that in itself was amazing so the fact we lost every game is not an issue for me, I am pleased with how we performed on that front.

I have fallen massively out of love with my save right now but I will come back to it and defeat this challenge

Good result, but it's no 20-0 as B.W.G. managed with his side! I've managed a couple of 8-0 results in Northern Ireland with my Dunloy team, but given they have been unbeaten for over 150 league games now (and counting), it's safe to say the other sides haven't exactly been providing a lot of opposition.

Good work on getting into Europe, whilst you didn't make much progress in the Group Stage, sinmply qualifying for them a few seasons in a row should give your finances a nice boost

Good result, but it's no 20-0 as B.W.G. managed with his side! I've managed a couple of 8-0 results in Northern Ireland with my Dunloy team, but given they have been unbeaten for over 150 league games now (and counting), it's safe to say the other sides haven't exactly been providing a lot of opposition.

Good work on getting into Europe, whilst you didn't make much progress in the Group Stage, sinmply qualifying for them a few seasons in a row should give your finances a nice boost

Yeah, not nearly as good as B.W.G, but still one of the best results I've had in FM11. Had a couple of 10+ in FM10, but this is the best so far in this version.

Failed to reach the group stage this year. Got beaten by Palermo of Italy. Still, we were no walkover, so that's a positive.

Note: Apologies for not supplying many links, I intend to be more descriptive in future seasons.

Spartak Myvala – Slovak Second Division – 2011/12

I was a promising start to the season for newly promoted Spartak Myjava, and early season form really indicated a push for a reasonable high league placing. I am not saying promotion was on the cards, but a finish much higher than the board expectations were suggesting. However, half way through the season, the board and media were clearly on the money with their message of attempt to avoid relegation, as the slump began. A run of eight consecutive losses soon pushed me into the relegation places, and a real threat of having to re-join the job queue. A slight re-shuffle in personnel, and tactics gave us a few decent victories, and moved the club out of the bottom two, and with a final league placing of 10th (out of 12) I was satisfied with the first season.

So, onwards and upwards – lets see what a new season brings. My immediate aims will be to move further up the table, and maybe a good cup run to boost finances, as I am struggling to attract any players that would improve my ageing squad. On that note, I will probably blood more of the youth squad, as the current first team are mostly above 30.

Damnit! I'm losing two of my best players on free after this season. I've tried to offer a new contract for over a year, but the agents won't even let me speak to them. Now both are going to Paris St. Germain for free...

League - Table - We won with a new record amount of goals scored. I honestly don't think we will get near that amount again. Goytre are the newly promoted side for the next season and they have gone pro so the whole league is now professional.

Champions League - Winners - 3rd Champions League victory on the run and out 1st within 90 minutes. This was my main aim and we succeeded. Funny enough we beat Arsenal by a 3 goal margain when we faced each other in the Euro Cup final in 2023!

Club World Cup - Winners - We beat Brazil's finest in a ding dong battle which pocketed us a few million for winning. We easily won our semi-final match against Melbourne Victory 9-0.

Super Cup - Winners - We dominated most of the game but Genoa did make it a battle and had a goal incorrectly ruled out for offside when we were 1-0 up so the decision can be seen to have had an imapct on the game.

Welsh Cup - Winners - We dominated from start to finish, its just a shame we didn't score any more as they are our nearest rivals afterall.

League Cup - Winners - My favourite win of the season as it was against TNS and we even scored twice with 10 men on the pitch...WOOOOOO!

Players/Awards

David Stewart was top scorer with 81 goals throughout the season. He won top scorer, european golden boot, Welsh Player of the Year, Player of the Year, Champions League best player and Club World Championship best Player and Fans Player of the Year.

Alan Williams topped the Assist chart with 41, was also neglected when it came to awards.

We were among the favourites to win the World cup at the start and it would be tough to do so. I decided to use the same tactic as I used with Bridgend throughout the years.

Group Stages - Table - We were given a straight forward group which consisted of Chile,Nigeria and Austria,if I didn't top this group then I would have quit. We stuffed Austria 6-0 in the first game, beat Nigeria 2-0 in the 2nd before the battle of the top 2 against Chile. We edged the game 2-1 to top the group with 3 wins out of 3. As a reward, we were drawn against Germany in the 2nd Round.

2nd Round - Match - I was annoyed with how the game ended more then anything we were dominating and went 3-0 up before the came back into the game and scored twice to give it a nervy ending. We got complacent and we cannot afford to do this in the latter stages. The shocks of the 2nd round were Cameroon beating Argentina, Turkey beating Brazil and Chile dumping Spain out of the Cup (Spain won 2022 WC.) We had another tough tie in the Quarters, this time against Italy.

Quarter Finals - Match - Italy were favourites, Italy dominated but we walked out with the victory to send us to the semi-finals. We took the lead in the 1st minute before being pegged back in the 14th. We scored the winner in the 79th minute which knocked the stuffing out of Italy. We were given a fairly easy tie against Ivory Coast in the semis.

Semi-Finals - Match - We dominated from start to finish, we got the victory but I was disappointed we didn't score more. In the final it will be Holland vs France. France were the runners up in the last WC.

Finals - Match - We were dominated in the 1st half and were lucky not to be more then 1 down at half time. We came back into it in the 2nd half and were more then a match for them, we equalized in the 71st minute and then took the leade in the 80th. This was short lived as France came back to score a 2nd in the 84th minute in which it finished 2-2 in normal time. Extra time was a ding dong battle but we took our chances to score the winner in the 97th minute to crown us the World Champions.

Finally we got the league win we have been looking for, but it wasn't easy. Last year it was Red Bull Salzburg and Austria Wien who were the big ones, but this year our hardest competetor was our old nemisis Mattersburg. They still have that arabian oil money and use it like drunken sailors, but get some good players in the process. Red Bull Salzburg had some more problems this year as they sacked their manager towards the end of the season, and the new one couldn't get his team to play as well as the old one. I don't think I'll be able to win next year as I have lost two of my key players to PSG on free(as I have posted a few posts up). We need to replace them this summer in order to keep the title.

In the ÖFB-Cup we were handed easy draws as far as the quarterfinals, meeting only lower league teams. The quarterfinal, however, lined us up against Wacker Innsbruck, we beat them comfortably 4-1 away. In the semi our opponents were Austria Wien, who had slightly fallen from grace this season and we beat them 3-2 without much effort. Then the dreaded final were next, we had the shot of getting our 3rd consecutive cup title and the only ones who stood in our way was Red Bull Salzburg. While they drifted somewhat away from Mattersburg and ourself in the league, they still have a great team. It was 1-1 after 90 minuttes, but we showed great mentality in extra time and went on to win it 3-1.

We were ready for our second stint in Europe, and starting in the 4th qualifying round of the Europa League we were once again unseeded for the draw. This saw us lined up against italian outfit Palermo, and we were up for a challenge. The first match was away, at Renzo Barbera, and we were well defeated. However, they only had one goal before half time, and I hoped we could sneak in a goal to get a possibility to get through, but when we got some people forward they countered in another goal. So a 0-2 defeat and things were looking grim for the rematch. I was still hopefull we could get through, but that hope was fading when Palermo got a goal in the 4th minutte. Still we fought like heroes for the rest of the match and got two goals in to end victorious 2-1, however it was not enough as Palermo won 3-2 on aggregate and ended our adventure in Europe for this season.

We are still in black, but lost quite a lot of money this season since we didn't reach the group stage of the Europa League. Our facilities were downgraded due to "the technological advances" and are now ratet "adequate". The board refuses to upgrade anything or expand the stadium, but with Champions League fotball coming our way next season we should get at least some cash from it.

The most notable players this season has been:

Lasse Andersen - He just turned 17, but has gotten himself a place in our first team squad. Our top scorer this season and a great prospect.Edinho - Had some injuryproblems this season, but when he plays it's magical. Man Utd has enquired about him several times, but he won't go cheap!Sergey Politevich - The rock of our defence. He scores for fun at corners and freekicks, were captain this season and will most likely be that for years to come.Emin Sulimani - He has been with me since my first season and are still one of the most solid performers.

Edinho - Had some injuryproblems this season, but when he plays it's magical. Man Utd has enquired about him several times, but he won't go cheap!

Well, he didn't go cheap, but he went. The board decided a £7.5M bid from Vitesse was good enough and sold him over my head. That's the 4th player they sell now, and I'm quite frankly getter rather irritated of him.

The set-up at Afan Lido is getting better as the club goes full time professional and we get a big improvement in training facilities.

League (League Table)
A third successive title and they are getting easier by the year. The big 3 are well established now as Llanelli and Haverfordwest continue to dominate everyone apart from the Lido.

Europe (European Results)
Champions Cup qualifying was much more difficult this time. Aggregate victories over EB/Streymur (3-1), Buducnost (5-2) and Omonoia (4-2) again left us one tie away from the group stage but this time we had to face the mighty Glasgow Celtic, damn! A historic 2-1 win at home gave us hope but we were crushed 4-1 in Scotland and so we missed out on the cash bonanza of the group stage. Things weren't too bad though as went straight into the Euro Cup group stages.

We were drawn with Genoa, Lille and Gladbach and we did quite well! We were unbeaten at home, beating Genoa 1-0 and drawing 1-1 with Gladbach and Lille. We lost 3-1 in Gladbach but a 1-1 draw in Lille and a 2-1 win in Genoa saw us finish in second place on 9 points. We were through to face Aston Villa in the first knockout stage!

Villa were too strong for us, winning 1-0 in Wales and 3-0 at Villa Park. We were out but it was a good run.

Domestic Cups
We wen't out the quarter finals of the Welsh Cup, losing in extra time to Bangor City. We regained the Loosemores League Cup with a 2-1 win over Neath (poor old neath get us in every final!).

Transfers (Transfers)
Not many transfers this season as I start to get picky over which free transfers have potential. Former welsh international Danny Collins was brought in along with two promising regens.

The Numbers
Here are some numbers which should help keep track of the clubs/leagues progress:
Average Attendance - 266 - up 15
Club Value - £6.6M - up £1.1M
Sponsership - £6.56k
Club Coefficient - 17.500, 115th - up 7.650, up 48 places

There might be a few mistakes, inconsistencies and a few people I overlooked. That happens when you're skimming past almost 1000 posts.

Great work there, interest, interesting to see my Dunloy side is the 2nd most sucesfull side, having reached the CL Qtr Finals, but I only have 3 more seasons to equal (or beat) BWG's achievement - can't see it happening somehow!

Should try and get this added to the first post - whilst it will get outdated soon enough (and I don't expect you to keep it updated), it's still a good snapshot at a point in time

Well, as my first ever challenge, I was a little nervous. Also, with little to no lower league management experience, Blackie Wallace definitely had his work cut out for him. Starting with no staff, and a fairly threadbear part-time team, it was going to take a lot to guide this once great team back to the top of the Welsh League and beyond...

But first and foremost is survival and I must admit I nearly failed at the first hurdle. My first few games went fairly well. I had signed the promising 20 year old Paul Dejyothin. However, I hadn't brought in enough new players and the ones I did have were dismal. Despite Dejothin leading the leagues scoring table, we were finding wins hard to come by as our defenders and goalkeepers gifted goals to the opposition. In the mid season transfer window, I made a couple of new signings, including a loanee from Neath and a new goalkeeper to try and stop the hemoragh at the back.

Although still bottom of the table, we stabilised with a draw against Bala and Neath. Then, with a mixture of highs (4-1 win over Bangor) and lows (2-3 loss to Newtown) we came to a real crunch game vs Neath. It was a real back and forth game, with my defence woeful (though less-so before the re-shuffle) but Dejothin was still battling up front. We then got to a point where we were 2-2, 5 minutes to go and we were pumping long balls ahead of us to Paul's feet to try and take advantage of the tired Neath defenders. He got past them once, slotted the ball just wide, tried again, ran past.... Then was caught by one of the defenders just outside the box. The defender was red carded and Dejothin lined up the ball in front of the wall. After what seemed like an age, he finally ran up, kicked the ball, sailed into the box, whacked off the head of a lone Neath man sitting in the box and sailed into the top right hand corner.

This put me in a good position for my game against fellow relegation battlers, Airbus. A close fought, 2-1 victory over them led me to survive to fight for the title (and european qualification) again.

Competitons:

League: - Table - 11th place. If I hadn't made so much of a hash of my initial foray into the transfer market and built up a solid defence earlier in the season, who knows where we could have been. But to survive and for me to keep my job is better than nothing.

Build on the base I have built up and try and perform better in the league and associated cups. My finances look a bit shaky so this will have to be done carefully in order to avoid getting into too much trouble. Dejyothin will be named Captain next season as reward for single-handedly keeping us in the league. He is a true giant amongst men and should be saluted.

How are the other Welsh teams doing in Europe? Have any reached the CL or EC Group stage?
What's The Welsh league's coefficient like? Is the WPL close to getting a second auto qualifying spot in the CL group stage?
It'd be pretty cool to see other Welsh teams piggy-backing off your success. Maybe even get the WPL ranked #1 one day.

How are the other Welsh teams doing in Europe? Have any reached the CL or EC Group stage?
What's The Welsh league's coefficient like? Is the WPL close to getting a second auto qualifying spot in the CL group stage?
It'd be pretty cool to see other Welsh teams piggy-backing off your success. Maybe even get the WPL ranked #1 one day.

kutgw

The other teams haven't been great. TNS have been in the champions league group stage due to me winning the champions league. The only team who have been in the group stage of the Euro Cup is Neath. The WPL isn't that far off a an actual 2nd auto qualifying spot, we are currently in 9th while 6th place will get us a 2nd spot.

TNS are improving slowly as they claimed a victory in the group stages against Leverkusen this season. They needed 5 points to go in the Euro Cup. Also they ran Benfica close even though they lost 5-3.

Suprisingly, we retained our title ahead of Mattersburg once again. We started greatly and got a lead of 10 point going into the winter break. After the holidays, however, we slipped up quite a lot, but still managed to keep Mattersburg on a good distance. We secured the title with 3 matches to go and let some fringe players get their chances.

In the ÖFB Cup we were looking to get our 4th consecutive title, but were knocked out in the semi finals by Austria Wien.

We were ready for our first try in the Champions League and started in the 3rd qualifying round where we were up against Ventspils of Latvia. We thrashed them over the two legs with a 7-1 aggregate score. The next opponent were Lokomotiv (Sofia) of Bulgaria, and if we beat them we were in the group stage! We won 1-0 at home and settled for a 0-0 on the road. Group stage here we come! We were drawn into a hard group, getting Bayern München of Germany, Lyon of France and Udinese of Italy. It was a hard group, and we ended bottom, but at least we didn't make fools of ourself.

The finances are getting better and better, and since we got into the group stage we got quite a lot to throw around. I've finally reached "Icon" for the club and the board has started to expand the stadium with 1260 seats aswell as improving both our youth and training facilities. The austrian league rank fell a rank last season, so I might not be able to get into the same round of CL as this year, but I'll have to wait and see.

The most notable players this season has been:

Daniel Saporiti - 29 goals and 18 assists speak for itself.Francisco Villa - The young defender has estabilshed himself as a first team regular and scores for fun as a defender.Christoph Knasmüllner - He joined us on free and were supposed to be backup, but did his things great.Miroslav Nespor - The offensive midfielder has run the attack greatly this season.